How did early Somalis conquer so much land?

[Revolutionarry]

To give you guys some context, if Somaliwayn(Somalia, Ogaden, Djibouti, NFD) were to be a country today, we would be the 27th largest country in the world, after South Africa. Ethiopia, if you take away western Somalia, would drop down to number 38, just behind Turkey. Don't forget that Somalis were expanding in NFD until the British stopped them which means we could have taken even more land.

How did Somalis, despite being small in number in those days, conquer such a massive land? Even our population today is 26 million(18 in Somalia, 4.5 in Ogaden and 3.5 in NFD), I am rounding up these numbers. Plus the diaspora, so we're well under 30 million. Even if you argue both Ethiopia and Kenya are deliberately shortcutting our numbers, we are still relatively small in number. So how did our ancestors conquer these lands?


I wonder how they'd feel knowing we have been humiliated like they humiliated their enemies.


Discuss!

 

[Basra]

The Gengis Khan syndrome. Unhinged Nomads who loved to conquer and blood after a marathon of jaaat chewing!

 

[Revolutionarry]

The Gengis Khan syndrome. Unhinged Nomads who loved to conquer and blood after a marathon of jaaat chewing!

That's what I thought too, and that's usually the first obvious answer but, how can nomads who usually don't even number in the tens of thousands conquer so much land? It's impossible!

 

[Internet Nomad]

Khat + coffee fuelled camels

 

[SuleimanI]

Maybe other people couldn't handle the climate

 

[Khaem]

That's what I thought too, and that's usually the first obvious answer but, how can nomads who usually don't even number in the tens of thousands conquer so much land? It's impossible!

Because organised nomads had an advantage in warfare back then. A farming community gets their land taken and they're stuck with no option but to assimilate. Nomads would just pack their camels, move somewhere else and continue fighting. Obv this isn't feasible nowadays.

 

[killerxsmoke]

To give you guys some context, if Somaliwayn(Somalia, Ogaden, Djibouti, NFD) were to be a country today, we would be the 27th largest country in the world, after South Africa. Ethiopia, if you take away western Somalia, would drop down to number 38, just behind Turkey. Don't forget that Somalis were expanding in NFD until the British stopped them which means we could have taken even more land.

How did Somalis, despite being small in number in those days, conquer such a massive land? Even our population today is 26 million(18 in Somalia, 4.5 in Ogaden and 3.5 in NFD), I am rounding up these numbers. Plus the diaspora, so we're well under 30 million. Even if you argue both Ethiopia and Kenya are deliberately shortcutting our numbers, we are still relatively small in number. So how did our ancestors conquer these lands?


I wonder how they'd feel knowing we have been humiliated like they humiliated their enemies.


Discuss!

Its cuz we're nomads, we go around the area to look for grass to feed our animals

 

[Yami]

Assimilation ethnic cleansing and genocide

 

[Khaem]

Assimilation ethnic cleansing and genocide

We rarely assimilated. Looking at how all Somalis except for a few clans are of the same origin and we prove to be the most homogenous group in the region. Somalis just genocided their way through the Penisula. Heck even recently as 1890 when Somalis entered Kenya the similar oromo were kicked off their land and forced to migrate or die whilst ethnic Somalis came and settled the new open land. That's just how Somalis did things, the opposite of oromos who assimilated everyone using their Gadda system.

 

[Dalac Bilaash]

Africa is huge and the population back in the day was very small compared to now Somalia's population in 1960 was just 2 million imagine the numbers in 1900s,1800s,1700s,1600s,1500s they were so small and majority of them were pastoralists who looked for rain and grazing lands.

 

[Mahmud33]

May Allah swt bless our forefathers.

 

[Revolutionarry]

Africa is huge and the population back in the day was very small compared to now Somalia's population in 1960 was just 2 million imagine the numbers in 1900s,1800s,1700s,1600s,1500s they were so small and majority of them were pastoralists who looked for rain and grazing lands.

Yeah but Somali population was like a million 100 years ago, meaning we were conquering these lands while we were langaab. It's crazy how tough our ancestors were!

What became of us?

 

[Yami]

We rarely assimilated. Looking at how all Somalis except for a few clans are of the same origin and we prove to be the most homogenous group in the region. Somalis just genocided their way through the Penisula. Heck even recently as 1890 when Somalis entered Kenya the similar oromo were kicked off their land and forced to migrate or die whilst ethnic Somalis came and settled the new open land. That's just how Somalis did things, the opposite of oromos who assimilated everyone using their Gadda system.

Our ancestors assimilated and expelled ethnic groups out of Somalia. There’s trace amounts raging from 5 - 10 percent of Bronze Age Yemenite DNA found in our genome. It’s from a indirect source, not directly from Yemen.

This means that sometime in the past the ancestors of Somalis came across some ethnicity with a good amount of Semitic admixture & assimilated them. They’re probably the reason we have ح & ع sounds in our language despite us speaking a Cushitic language.

While other groups were incorporated into the Somali identity over time. Like the Yibir and most recently Reewein. Even though the 2 aforementioned groups are culturally and genetically extremely similar to us they still held their own separate identities before contact with Soomaal clans.

 

[Northern Swordsman]

Hardcore pastoralists.

Eat or be eaten.

Survive or perish.

(+ the mercy of Allah)

 

[Revolutionarry]

The Gengis Khan syndrome. Unhinged Nomads who loved to conquer and blood after a marathon of jaaat chewing!

@Hodan from HR

 

[Himmler]

It’s from a indirect source, not directly from Yemen.

What’s your reasoning behind this? I also thought this was possible at one point and that Somalis may have received our Yemeni admixture via Habeshas but that would require we have significant amounts of Habesha ancestry, We’d have to be something like a quarter Habesha which I think is unlikely. We also share clades with Yemenis that Habeshas don’t carry so I think it probably was direct tbh

 

[World]

I believe that the land was underutilised until the camel was introduced to the region. So Somalis with their camels were able to support more people with less resources and increase their population unlike those who didn’t use the camel.

 

[al-Mu'tamid المعتمد]

Ambition. Also once you conquered the first city the next one is usually close and ripe for the taking.

 

[Cartan Boos]

Somalis are very warlike people I don't know how u people find this strange, Ogaden,Mx,harti were making bantus and nilotic extinct in kenya until British intervened